Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

David Davis Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 18th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

This is a terrible Bill. Its central failing is that it will lead to the persecution of patriotic, innocent British soldiers whose only sin is defending our democracy with heroism and skill. What it will do is recreate a circumstance in which soldiers are treated unfairly by the law.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) referred to the case of Soldier B and the judge’s dismissal of it as a “ludicrous” challenge funded by legal aid. I have known Soldier B for 30 years; I count him as a friend. He is tough and clever yet, even for him, being dragged through the courts for four years and more, on what is effectively preparation for a murder charge, would have been unbelievably stressful. The point my hon. Friend made is that the process is the punishment: four years of stress and wear and tear.

In Operation Banner, our soldiers assiduously obeyed the yellow card rules, but in Northern Ireland the courts have sometimes interpreted those rules as requiring our soldiers to take almost suicidal risks. We are dragging men in their 70s and 80s through coroners courts in Belfast, and judging them by a standard that makes no sense in a military context. To illustrate this, let me share with the House a single case that highlights what can happen to soldiers under these circumstances.

On 16 March 1978, in the middle of the night, two SAS soldiers were manning a covert observation post. They saw two men in combat clothing moving toward them. One of our soldiers, David Jones, stood up and challenged the men. The IRA gunman immediately shot him down in a burst of gunfire. That story would have been at the back of the mind of every soldier who subsequently served in Northern Ireland. They made their decisions in the face of the risk of immediate death. It is a measure of their professionalism that hundreds of terrorists were arrested alive under the circumstances, given that the soldiers could have been killed.

Today’s debate is actually about morality. It is about whether this House chooses justice over political convenience, truth over revisionism, and loyalty over the cynical rewriting of history. The Government claim that today’s problems arise from legislation passed by the previous Government, which allegedly created an amnesty for terrorists. Really? What are the facts?

Labour, under Blair, effectively gave a de facto amnesty—maybe it is challengeable in law—to at least 650 terrorists, who had carried out more than 3,000 killings. Early release schemes, on-the-run letters and the royal prerogative of mercy collectively created a vast secret system of de facto immunity. It was secret because the Government knew that people would not accept it.

[Alex Ballinger]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Davis]

No. I am sorry, but I do not have time.

People knew that the system would not be accepted, which is why Gerry Adams asked for an “invisible system” for dealing with on-the-runs. Why are they on the run? They are on the run because they are criminals, and this was a secret system to deal with it.

In contrast, 300,000 of our soldiers defended democracy in Northern Ireland. They defended law and order, democracy and the innocent citizens of Northern Ireland, whom we often forget in this. They acted as the direct opposite of the IRA, the gangster organisation that terrorised all communities in Northern Ireland. By the way, I mean “all communities”; remember that the IRA killed a very large number of Catholics to terrorise that community. Yet today those who upheld the law face relentless legal pursuit, while those who broke the law received leniency, letters and legal shelter.

Let us not forget that the IRA are also protected by the fact that witnesses, or would-be witnesses, against them know that they risk murder if they turn up. I was in Omagh a few weeks ago, and I met a policeman who was shot—six times, I think—only a couple of years ago by the Real IRA, or the New IRA or whatever label they have today. Instead of attacking those who served, we should honour them, their service and their patriotism. We should not treat them worse than the killers they defeated. This House must say, “Enough. Enough moral inversion, and enough rewarding of terror, while hounding those who defended the public.”

We are told that the Bill is necessary because Northern Ireland will not support alternatives, but when real leaders must choose between consensus and justice, they choose justice. This Bill must not rest on appeasement. The world watches while Britain chooses today. Its allies watch with concern, and its enemies with enthusiasm, as they plan future decades of lawfare against our best soldiers. If we do not speak up to protect both our current service personnel and our veterans, the innocent will suffer in future, and we will find ourselves unable to defend our nation.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over)

David Davis Excerpts

Carry-over motion
Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and, given what I am going to say, to the fact that I was a trustee of the SAS Regimental Association for two decades up until a few years ago.

This Bill was sold to the House and the country on the premise that it would deliver human rights and the rule of law. As the House knows, I pay great attention to human rights and the rule of law—so much so that I defeated my own Government in court on exactly that issue—but what we have here is neither human rights nor justice. It is a perversion of rights and a travesty of justice.

The Government clearly have made promises to Sinn Féin, to IRA families and to would-be rewriters of history, including the Irish Government, putting those ahead of the interests of our soldiers. The recent revelation that the Attorney General, Lord Hermer, pursued cases against our soldiers, despite knowing that the allegations might be false, is indicative, I am afraid, of the attitude of this Government to the rights of our soldiers, as was the Secretary of State’s response to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). The attitude is one of undermining our soldiers at home while they fight abroad, and the same will happen under this Bill.

We have already had a rehearsal or a preview of what is to come. This month’s Court of Appeal judgment in the case of Soldier B in the Coagh firefight is a perfect illustration. The shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), read out some of the judge’s comments in that case; I will take things a little further. What happened in the Coagh firefight was that the IRA plotted to murder an Ulster Defence Regiment soldier. In the process of doing that, they were hit by an SAS patrol. The IRA terrorists all died, and an inquest found that the SAS actions were all entirely lawful. So what happened? One of the IRA members’ family used taxpayers’ money—legal aid—to force a judicial review. The judge threw that out, stating:

“In this challenge, this Court is being asked to slow the passage of time down, to analyse events in freeze-frame… It is ludicrous to suggest that this court should analyse the events of the day in question in that manner”.

He went on to say:

“I cannot conclude this judgment without expressing my surprise that legal aid funding was made available to mount such a challenge”.

[Lincoln Jopp]

My right hon. Friend is incredibly well informed on this subject. In his research, has he found any justification for public money being used in that way?

[David Davis]

No, but it is simply the rule that in Northern Ireland, it is easier to get legal aid for these issues. I can see that there was a reason for that in the past, but it has, in effect, perverted the course of justice in a case where soldiers did nothing more than their duty. That is what is going to happen under this Bill, too, because the case went on to appeal. If anything, the judge struck down that appeal in even more robust terms than the previous judge. A brave, patriotic, honourable soldier was dragged through three courts over several years, in gratuitous actions that were funded by the taxpayer.

I say “brave”, “honourable” and “patriotic”; these are not casual words. I have known Soldier B for 30 years. As well as being a brave soldier, he is a firm believer in the rule of law. He does not believe that there should be exemptions. He believes that there should be proper rule of law, which is not provided by the Bill. Indeed, given his history and his views, I would say that he has a better claim to have defended justice in our country than anyone in the House, and certainly than those on the Government Front Bench. What happened in that case is just a rehearsal for what will come if the Bill goes through. If it is passed, hundreds more—and I mean hundreds—will follow.

This Bill puts the interests of the Irish Government, Sinn Féin and IRA apologists above those of our veterans, and would put rewriting history ahead of providing proper justice. It is unpatriotic, disingenuous and dishonourable. It satisfies no one. It solves nothing. Everything it touches, it makes worse. I note that the Minister for the Armed Forces is not here for the vote, and I entirely understand why: he wants to avoid association with this disgraceful legislation. If he cannot vote for it, neither should we. We should reject this disgraceful Bill out of hand.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Andy McDonald, who has a three-minute speaking time limit.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)

David Davis Excerpts

Carry-over motion
Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

With the Prime Minister sitting next to him, I hope that it will not influence the future of the Secretary of State when I tell the House that he and I are very long-standing friends and even occasional allies. He has obviously done all he can to mitigate what is a morally flawed Bill. A year after the Government introduced this Bill, the central question remains unanswered: how will it deliver justice without subjecting soldiers who served lawfully and honourably to endless punitive investigation?

My judgment has not changed since October’s debate, nor April’s. The Bill was sold as a defence of human rights and the rule of law. I yield to no one in this House on human rights and defence of the rule of law, but this is not that. Instead, it is morally bankrupt and makes a mockery of both. If this Bill was really about human rights and justice, the first coroner’s inquest would not be about whether the killings at Loughgall were unlawful; it would instead be about one of the 1,800 murders carried out by the IRA, every single one of which was unlawful.

The Government, unfortunately, have prioritised their relationship with Dublin over their duties to their own veteran soldiers. Ireland will undoubtedly come to regret its own role in this Bill. Scrutiny of its actions during the troubles will show that it was never the impartial party it tries to present itself as now, but instead a partisan and a criminal insurgency. The Irish Government provided active sanctuary for IRA terrorists, and justice cannot mean relentless scrutiny for British soldiers but selective scrutiny for the Irish Government. They must accept the scrutiny of themselves that they demand of others, and we might start with an independent review of their role in the Omagh bombing, which we have heard something of today.

I am afraid that this is a nation much of whose politics is hostile to Britain—we should not avoid that fact. Britain must not sacrifice its soldiers for an illusory diplomatic advantage. This vexatious use of lawfare is designed with one intent: to re-present the behaviour of IRA killers—vicious, psychopathic murderers—as somehow liberators and heroes, by destroying the reputations of our own soldiers. The Government must not pursue this course. The Government must drop this evil Bill and start again.

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That the period on the expiry of which proceedings on the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill shall lapse in pursuance of paragraph (13) of Standing Order No. 80A shall be extended by 198 days until 29 April 2027.

[David Davis]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In the rush to fit my speech into three minutes, I omitted to draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, some of which has direct relevance to Northern Ireland legislation. I do so now.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

David Davis Excerpts

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

[Chris Bryant]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms Ghani. Today, we will debate parts 1 to 5 of the Bill. I will speak to the amendments in my name and deal with some of those tabled by others that I shall be resisting, including those that amount to a motion that a clause should not stand part of the Bill.

First, I want to say how important it is that we achieve a balanced piece of legislation today and tomorrow. That is important because we need to get this right for the thousands of families who are still waiting for answers. It is important that the Bill is properly balanced so that anyone can seek answers, whatever their background and whoever the probable perpetrator. It is important, too, that it is balanced because all must be treated equally and all must have an equal chance of justice. That is the rule of law that we all adhere to in this country.

The package of amendments I have tabled seeks to achieve that balance. Some are, of course, technical, including Government amendment 143—the first amendment we are considering—which removes redundant words, but others are more substantive and in many cases respond directly to matters raised in previous debates or amendments tabled by other hon. Members. In the interests of time, I shall primarily deal with those more substantive matters under three main headings.

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I have not even got to my headings yet, but, as the right hon. Member knows, I am fond of him.

[David Davis]

Our exchanges on fondness will get the Secretary of State into trouble. He talks about balance; who has that balance or who governs that balance is important. Will he tell the Committee how many of the substantive amendments were either shown to or discussed with the Irish Government before they were brought to the Committee?

[Chris Bryant]

I have not shared a single amendment. I have talked about the broad thrust of some of the amendments with some members of the Irish Government, but I have not shown any of the amendments to anybody in the Irish Government. I think the first they ever saw of the amendments was when they were tabled in this House and appeared before everybody else. On occasion, as part of the consultation with various special forces groups and others, we have, of course, talked about some of the broad issues. I have wanted to consult as widely as I possibly can, and in some of those instances, we showed some draft amendments to, I think, the Special Forces Association and to some of the generals and others, but we certainly have not done that with any other Governments.

The first of my three headings is improving the process for victims and families, including through further changes to the commission. The second is ensuring we have the strongest possible safeguards in place for our former service personnel. The third is addressing concerns about repeat investigations and the importance of compelling new evidence.

First, we must ensure that the process for victims and families is open, accessible, efficient and effective. Much has been learned in recent years from Operation Kenova and other investigations. The legacy commission must be able to command the respect and confidence of all families. That is why the Bill strengthens the commission’s investigative powers, improves the disclosure regime, puts in place new conflict of interest duties, allows for public hearings in certain cases, and creates a new victims and survivors advisory group. It is why the Bill repeals the immunity scheme—which has been rejected across communities, and to which we shall return tomorrow—and it is why we must secure information sharing arrangements with the Irish authorities.

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[Chris Bryant]

The term “vexatious claim” could in itself be argued to be vexatious. A phrase that I have used a couple of times is “rinse and repeat”. I will come to that a little later. I am keen to ensure that nobody is subjected to being brought back time and again to face the same kind of process.

[David Davis]

On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Much as I am fond of the right hon. Gentleman, I need to give way to the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim first.

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[Chris Bryant]

I will finish this point and then I will come to the right hon. Members for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) and for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis).

Our new clause 32 also recognises, as the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim has just said, the operational context in which veterans served and the circumstances in which they needed to make decisions in deploying the use of force so as to prevent harm. This includes recognising the orders they were given, the intelligence briefings available to them, and the age, experience and training available to many of those soldiers.

[David Davis]

The Secretary of State, with every good intention, talks about preventing “rinse and repeat”, yet the moment we introduce this situation into a coroner’s inquest, the opportunity for judicial review arises—multiple stages of judicial review. As we have already seen with inquests, “rinse and repeat” cannot be stopped, so a soldier may be going through three or four judicial processes, all of them painful, whatever the Government say.

[Chris Bryant]

I am conscious of judicial review, not least because my decision on Drumcree is presently being judiciously reviewed. [Interruption.] I meant to say judicially reviewed—whether it is judicious is a matter for the courts to decide, not me; I am not challenging their authority.

We have to be clear about what judicial review can and cannot do. It is about the decision of the state authority that is being investigated, not the decision of the individual. That is a really important distinction to make.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

David Davis Excerpts

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

[Chris Bryant]

That is a good question, to which I do not have the answer. With any luck, I will be inspired by the time the hon. Member gets to his feet and catches your eye, Ms Ghani, and I will come back to him.

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I have a horrible fear that this has set off my old sparring partner.

[David Davis]

To add to that point, when the Secretary of State looks at that, will he also look at elements written into the Irish constitution, particularly with respect to the operation of the Garda and its duty to protect the reputation of the Irish state? That will also cripple any attempt to expose information.

[Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Member makes a very good point. The Irish constitution has sometimes made it far more difficult for the Irish Government to be able to co-operate, and that is why they have had to legislate in some of these areas in a way that we would not have to in the United Kingdom. That is why the agreement secured by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South is so important and why the legislation they are advancing answers many of these precise issues in direct terms. These issues, which we do need to address, are not lost on Ministers in Dublin.

We have always been committed to repealing those parts of the legacy Act—the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation Act 2023—that were incompatible with our human rights obligations and which we felt were morally wrong as they risked providing equal immunity to terrorists and denying UK citizens their historic right to seek civil redress. In the interests of providing swift and early clarity, we had proposed to do that via the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 (Remedial) Order 2025. However, the Joint Committee on Human Rights—its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), was with us yesterday—among others argued that putting those measures in the Bill would allow greater scrutiny without undue delay. Consequently, Government new clause 52 alongside amendments 244, 245, 268 and others move the operative provisions of the remedial order into the Bill. That brings the whole package together, ensuring that there is a clear transition between the legacy Act and the troubles Bill.

On Second Reading and in our engagement on the Bill, there has been considerable concern about the so-called on-the-runs letters to which a couple of hon. Members referred yesterday. Indeed, the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) and the hon. Members for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) and for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) have tabled amendments on the matter that aim to put the status of those letters beyond doubt. I know that I referred to this yesterday, but, because this matter is before us today, I do want to return to it.

Those letters did not provide any individual with immunity from prosecution, and they are not legally binding guarantees against future prosecution. That has been confirmed by the 2014 Hallett review and by numerous Ministers under successive Administrations, including the former Prime Minister David Cameron. It has also been reiterated by the current chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Jon Boutcher. However, I recognise the ongoing concern in relation to such letters, so I tabled new clause 51 to make it clear that they cannot be used to prevent or frustrate a prosecution.

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[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.

[David Davis]

Every single time we have seen a member of the special forces in the UK speak in public about this matter, they have made it plain that they do not believe that they are above the law. On the contrary, they believe that they are there to uphold the law and that what they object to is making the process the punishment, which is where we are now.

[Alex Burghart]

My right hon. Friend puts it better than I ever could.

This House deserves to be reassured that the tip of the spear is not being blunted. Although details of special forces are necessarily restricted, it would be a huge dereliction of function if we did not ask for these issues to be monitored. For that process to have confidence, it should, as our amendment sets out, be conducted by an independent figure.

I know that Governments hate to accept such amendments, but I would really value the Secretary of State’s considered response on how this House can be reassured that one of our most prized national assets—the special forces—is not being allowed to wither. I know that he will say that recruitment is up generally, but I am making a specific point about special forces and the consequences of rinse and repeat.

I return to where I started: there are some things with which we can agree today, but the fundamentals are still problematic. I very much hope that the Government will take the opportunity now and in the Lords to put them right.

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New clause 50 applies well-established prosecution principles of independence and public interest. It has my support, too, and I am very glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has adopted it. I thank the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) for his work on this. Clearly, judging by the plaster cast on his arm, he was so excited by the Secretary of State accepting the amendment yesterday that he celebrated a little too hard, but I hope he is well.

[David Davis]

You should see the other guy!

[Adam Jogee]

We will save that one for later, I think—I will buy him a cup of tea.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for ensuring that there are new and effective protections for our veterans—protections that were not included in the previous Government’s legacy Act. I join the Royal British Legion in welcoming amendment 240, which gives our veterans the peace of mind that they will not be targeted with cold calls. That is, of course, hugely important for all the ageing veterans who served our country, some of whom are in the Gallery today.

The Bill will also ensure that nobody who carried out terrorist atrocities in towns and cities across the United Kingdom will be given immunity from prosecution. For example, new clause 51 stops on-the-run letters—which have never been legally binding—preventing prosecutions. I thank the Secretary of State for the words he put to that earlier.

The protection from repeated investigations, protection from cold calling, protection in old age, a right to stay at home, a right to anonymity and a right for veterans’ voices to be heard are all important changes that will go a long way to protecting those who served. Those are all so important, and I am grateful to Members across the House who helped us get to this place today. A commitment to reconciliation, a belief in political partnership and an understanding that peace is not a single event but an ongoing process is reflected in the amendments we are discussing this afternoon.

It is also important to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: no legacy Bill will ever satisfy everyone, because the pain of the troubles sits differently with every individual, every family and every community, as we have seen in our debates. This Bill is no exception, whatever amendments are tabled and approved. For some, it may not go far enough in the pursuit of truth and accountability. For others, it may reopen wounds they wish they could finally close. That tension reflects not the shortcomings of any single piece of legislation but the enormity of the suffering endured during the conflict.

We must also recognise that the Bill cannot, and was never intended to, repair every harm or resolve every grievance. Legislation cannot rewrite the past, nor can it undo the loss that thousands of families still feel so deeply. What it can do, however, is help create a structured, principled framework to address legacy issues in a way that is fair, transparent and capable of earning people’s trust. Most importantly, this Bill must be understood as not only a measure aimed at the past but a step toward the future—a step that has been made more likely with this Bill and many of the amendments that have been tabled by Members across the House, by colleagues of mine on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and by His Majesty’s Government.

Northern Ireland deserves a pathway that allows future generations to live without inheriting the full weight of division and trauma that shaped the decades that went before them. For this Bill to succeed, it must do much more than catalogue history; it must help us build the conditions in which communities can live together, heal together and move forward together. We must also recognise that some of the proposals remain deeply challenging and controversial, and we have to ensure we find a way through that. In addressing legacy, we are dealing with raw and painful memories, contested narratives and a future that, if we are to reach it, still requires courage and patience. We owe it to the people of Northern Ireland—both victims and survivors—to those who served, and to future generations to make sure that we get this right and that this Bill is sent to the other place in as strong and robust a form as possible.

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[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

The peace that Northern Ireland has today rests on the reconciliation process that we have seen in recent decades, civil rights and the rule of law, as well as the recognition that differences must be settled through dialogue and democratic means, and with respect for the rights and perspectives of every community and tradition.

The peace in Northern Ireland today was also built on the service and sacrifice of the men and women of Operation Banner, thousands of whom came from Sunderland. They did not go from Sunderland to Northern Ireland to be on either side; they went because they were actively recruited by the British state at a time when there was high unemployment in places like Sunderland. They stood on Northern Ireland’s streets, overwhelmingly as a protective force, on sentry and patrol duty, guarding civilians, on constant alert against those who were trying to kill. Over 38 years of Operation Banner, 1,441 of our British service personnel died; 722 were killed by paramilitaries.

I listened carefully to the debate yesterday. As others have said, there were many fantastic and moving contributions. I pay particular tribute to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba), who is not in his place today. The contribution that moved me most, and most closely reflected the experience of my veterans in Sunderland, came from the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson), who is not in his place today. He described serving as a young rifleman on the streets of Northern Ireland, and not knowing, when a civilian raised their hand, whether they were making a purely innocuous gesture, or about to throw an incendiary device. That was the experience of the constituents I met at our local Gunners Club in the recess just gone, for a two-hour roundtable to discuss the issue.

The reality is that without the Army’s deployment in 1969, Northern Ireland faced the risk of far more bloodshed than it unfortunately experienced. Those who served held the line for decades—long enough for politics to finally take its place—and we must never stop saying thank you to them. As others have said, it is not right to set veterans against victims, and to suggest that veterans were not, in many cases, victims themselves. Serving both, and all, allows us all to move forward to a peaceful future, but that will take changes to the law, through this Bill, and full co-operation and transparency from the British and Irish Governments.

I am clear that the previous Government’s legacy Act failed on multiple counts. It commanded the support of no community and no party in Northern Ireland, and it undermined the ongoing process of reconciliation, which recent weeks show is still absolutely essential. It also failed victims of every background, including the families of the British soldiers murdered by the IRA in Guildford and on the M62, whose killers would have been offered immunity. We should never forget that those bereaved military families were among the most vehement critics of the previous Government’s legacy approach; indeed, they were part of the legal action against it.

Many who came home still carry the cost. In the conversation I had with veterans recently, they shared their remembrance of what they saw in Northern Ireland, how that affected their life still, and how, when they got home, they had far too little support on discharge from the British state. The reality is that there were 300,000 Operation Banner veterans, and six prosecutions of them. However, too often since the Good Friday agreement, it has felt as if the legal system was built to scrutinise the split-second actions of frontline soldiers—process as punishment. At the same time, comfort letters were given to suspected terrorists, the very people the soldiers were sent to protect civilians from. That system has also felt focused on individual frontline soldiers, not on failings in the chain of command, although in some cases, its decisions profoundly affected civilians. Those who served with honour deserve to live out their life in peace, with our country’s thanks, not fearing a knock at the door. They were offered false and undelivered promises by the previous Government, and they did not feel that the Bill as introduced was appropriate.

In that spirit, I have engaged with our Ministers on this, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn), over the past year. For a significant time, I was clear, in our private meetings, that I could not support the legislation unamended. I sought many amendments, and some of them were discussed yesterday. New clause 32, which was agreed to, is clear that action taken in the course of duty must never be treated as equivalent to terrorism. New clause 43 sets a tight time limit of 14 days for an application for judicial review; that will give some clarity about whether be lawfare can take place long after legal proceedings seem to have closed.

I am pleased that the amendments that we are discussing today go further on the assurances that veterans have asked for and that I have pushed for over the past year. As the Secretary of State said, under new clause 50, no one can be prosecuted for the most serious troubles-related offences without the consent of the Attorney General. That applies to everyone, so it is not an amnesty. The peace that we have in Northern Ireland was built on the rule of law, not sectional favouritism for one group. The new clause offers a senior independent check from outside Northern Ireland’s politics. That will go some way towards winning the trust of veterans who have lost faith in the system. The reality is that following the acquittal of soldier F, no one expects further prosecutions.

A second point about the amendments that we are considering today is that they offer no special exit for terrorists. As hon. Members have rightly pointed out, the collapse of the trial on the Hyde Park bombing—an attack that killed four soldiers—was the result of an apparently mistakenly issued letter of comfort. The hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) rightly said that such terrorist action was always wrong; there should never have been any doubt about this House’s condemnation of that. Veterans saw that old soldiers were questioned decades on, while suspected bombers held letters saying that they were not wanted. That ends today.

Thirdly, and for most veterans most importantly, there will be an end to being investigated and questioned again and again. Yesterday’s amendments mean that investigators must go through the state’s own records first, and give particular weight to whether compelling new evidence exists before requiring any veteran to give evidence. Under new clause 84, which we are discussing today, a resumed inquest must not repeat what has already been done, unless that is essential. I welcome the Secretary of State setting out the clear process by which inquests will end altogether. A veteran who has given his account should not be made to relive the same night, and answer the same questions, every few years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) underlined, there will be protections for veterans against cold calling and returning to Northern Ireland, which have been welcomed by the Royal British Legion.

I will support the Bill, as the amendments are sufficient, in my view, to win the confidence of veterans. However, the Bill cannot be the end of Parliament’s interest in the issue. I had an exchange with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South about how the changes will be kept under review. I welcome the fact that under amendment 251, there will be an independent inspection of the legacy commission, and a report to the House on what the UK and Irish Governments are doing to ensure that the promises made in the Bill are kept. Transparency must run both ways across the border, and this House must play its part in holding both Governments to their promises.

If this legislation passes, veterans will have significantly more protections than at any time since the Good Friday agreement—protections written into law, and protections that support justice and answers for all, including the families of British soldiers murdered by the IRA. But I know that some veterans feel today that we are not yet there; too many have been told that. My local veterans’ charity receives calls from people who served 30 years ago who have never been subject to any questioning or doubt. They have been picking up the phone and saying, “What’s this I hear about the Government wanting to come after me?” What they have heard is clearly not accurate. Of course, I respect the right of anyone in this House to scrutinise the Government through each of our votes.

However, anyone who says that they care about veterans’ welfare is acting absolutely shamefully if they scaremonger, raising fears among 300,000 veterans who have never been subject to any doubt about their conduct, and the honour with which they served. There is a difference between political scrutiny and political point scoring; the latter does no service to our veterans, and I hope that the rest of the debate is the former. Our veterans deserve peace and reconciliation as much as the people of Northern Ireland do. It is through the foundations that they laid, through their service, that the reconciliation that we see across Northern Ireland is partly possible. It is in honour of their service that we must create the conditions for that reconciliation to continue. In honour of those who have served and every victim of the troubles, I will support today’s amendments and the Bill tonight.

[David Davis]

I commend the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) on his speech. While I disagree with some of its substance, I agree with a lot of his sentiment, and his support for our veterans is welcome.

May I thank the Secretary of State for his telephone call at home to tell me that he was going to support my amendment 50? I should have realised—I have been here long enough—when I looked at the Order Paper for amendment 50 in the name of David Davis that it would have become Government amendment 50. I feel as if I have been nationalised. It is the only time that I will approve of a nationalisation. I thank him for that.

I commend the Secretary of State for the elegance and tone of his speaking over the past couple of days. This is the most formidable and difficult of Bills facing the House, as I think anybody would recognise, and he has navigated it with great charm. He has reinforced my view that he should have been in the Cabinet long ago, and I thank him.

[Gavin Robinson]

He has already signed it, David—there is no need to lick up.

[David Davis]

I am trying to do as much damage as possible. [Laughter.]

I stand to speak principally to amendment 51 and, to some extent, to amendment 49, which would stop existing paused inquests going forward. Amendment 51 would address directly the paused inquest relating to Loughgall. I picked that event out because it is the most controversial and central to what the IRA were trying to achieve. It is emblematic of many of the reasons why we should not pursue any of these inquests, but should put them in their proper place with the legacy commission, which could deal with them dispassionately.

Before I go any further, I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and not just this year but in previous years. They relate to the fact that I was the trustee of the SAS Regimental Association for well over a decade—I cannot remember how many years.

All parties in the debate so far, yesterday and today, have quite properly focused on the need to get closure for victims and, at the same time, to deliver justice for our veterans. Nobody can argue with those two aims. I am focusing mostly on getting justice for veterans by preventing them being punished by the process, but, before I pursue that line in detail, I will address some of the words and definitions that we are using, particularly the definition of “victim” in the operation of inquests in Northern Ireland.

We all have in our minds a fairly clear idea of what a victim is, but unfortunately it is a little different in Northern Ireland. The difference arises from a deliberate decision taken by the Blair Government in article 3 of the Victims and Survivors (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, which changed the definition of “victim” and ruled that anyone affected by the troubles through loss, trauma or injury would be classed as a victim. That means that proven murderers killed in an attempt to carry out another murder count as victims. I know of nowhere else in the world where the law treats killers as victims.

This issue is still relevant. In September last year, the Democratic Unionist party used a motion in the Northern Ireland Assembly to try to restore some moral clarity by adding the word “innocent” before “victims”. Most of us would think of that as a tautology, but the motion was defeated by Sinn Féin, supported by Alliance. That is incredibly central to this matter, because the word “innocent” exposes the truth and draws a line between terrorists and their victims.

In response to the point made earlier by the hon. Member for Sunderland Central, “veterans” and “victims” are not mutually exclusive terms, but “terrorists” and “victims” are. That is the significance of the amendments I am talking about. In the IRA active service unit killed at Loughgall, there were any number of people to whom that applied. The clearest example was Jim Lynagh, who was guilty of at least 20 murders and probably more than 30. His nickname was “the executioner”. He was not an innocent victim by any rational judgment of the word.

Why Loughgall? It was the greatest single defeat of the IRA—the one that they are most sore about and still feel the scars of. Why is that? Because it involved the defeat of what they considered their most successful unit, the East Tyrone brigade. What was the measure of that success? That so-called brigade killed 250 innocent people. The defeat at Loughgall was seen as a humiliation for the IRA, and that means that they are now desperate to rewrite history and cast their murderers as heroes and British soldiers as amoral killers. That is why they want a coroner’s inquest, rather than a legacy commission.

I am afraid that in Northern Ireland a coroner’s inquest is in many ways public theatre; it is just different. The shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), made this point, but I will reiterate it. In the rest of the United Kingdom, an inquest is not allowed to pursue a case if it becomes at all apparent that it may lead to a criminal prosecution, such as the finding of an unlawful killing, but in Northern Ireland the reverse is true.

Even Northern Irish judges recognise the ludicrous nature of that situation. We saw that in the Coagh case with Soldier B, where there was judicial review attempt after judicial review attempt, which led to the judge talking about the

“ludicrous nature of this challenge, funded as it is by legal aid.”

The judge in that sequence talked about having to make views or judgments in slow motion or freeze frame on decisions. Those were life-and-death decisions, for the individuals concerned, and they were made in fractions of a second. That is the central reason for my objection.

Why are operations such as Loughgall, Clonoe, Coagh or any of the others challenged by supporters of the IRA and others? The peculiar circumstances of Northern Ireland made this sort of operation necessary. How is that? The IRA knew how to frustrate justice. They would murder or intimidate not just anybody who thought that they might be a witness, but their families. If I were in that circumstance in Northern Ireland, I would baulk at giving evidence if I felt that my family might be murdered as a result of doing so, and I would baulk at serving on a jury for the same reason. That is why we ended up with Diplock trials, which had judges without juries, because that was simply not viable. When Diplock recommended those trials, he gave the example of a man who was executed in front of his young son the day before he was due to give evidence in a terrorist trial. That is the background and the circumstances.

However, the IRA did not stop there. They understood that, as well as witnesses, the other thing that matters in court cases is forensics. That is why they wore a strange uniform of boiler suits, rubber gloves, shoe coverings or wellingtons and balaclavas, because they knew that they had to deny the evidence, but that was not all. When they had carried out their crime, the cars used were frequently abandoned and burned to destroy the evidence. There are plenty of examples—I think Clonoe was one of them—where a crowd prevented the authorities from getting close to a car until it had burned out, for the very simple reason that it destroyed the evidence. Even in the case of the murder of a previous Speaker at Stormont, Norman Stronge, and his son, the IRA set fire to the house, with the same aim.

[Mr Campbell]

On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the IRA’s determination to deal with forensics, does he know that they also blew up the forensics laboratory in south Belfast, where the forensic information had been gathered?

[David Davis]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. That serves to focus our minds on the fact that this was a very deliberate strategy. This did not happen by accident, and the IRA did not just take to wearing boiler suits as uniforms; this was a deliberate strategy.

The IRA’s strategy faced the state with a conundrum. Doing nothing and sitting back does not work—if the jury processes and other judicial processes do not work, that is not an option. Why do I say that? Let me go back and take the East Tyrone brigade as an example. It killed 250 people before Loughgall. During the late ’80s, it was killing people at a rate of 10 or 15 a year. Doing nothing meant that 10 or 15 innocent people would die every year because the state was not fulfilling its duty, so the only way to stop it was to catch the East Tyrone brigade in flagrante—in the act of carrying out a crime—and try to arrest them. Of course, the first aim of the state is always to act with minimum force if possible, but the circumstances did not always allow that. This was an armed set of terrorists, probably in the process of trying to kill somebody, who might then turn to kill you, and you had to stand up and say, “Excuse me, you’re under arrest.” We saw from many of these events how dangerous that was. At Coagh—the case that went through all those judicial reviews—an SAS soldier effectively had to dress up as a UDR man to be the target, and they had to wait until he had been shot at before they moved.

At Clonoe, which my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar mentioned, there was another problem: the intelligence was wrong, which made it even more difficult. There they were facing a double-barrelled dushka machine gun, .50 calibre and capable of bringing down light armour or aircraft. A three-second burst of fire from that and the whole patrol would have been dead. That was the sort of thing we were asking our soldiers to do. I will come back to the Loughgall example, which is even worse in many ways. That was the sort of thing that we said to our soldiers, “You must do this to attempt to achieve an arrest, or at least a stop if you have to.” This is not theoretical; in the specific context of the special forces, which is what these three cases relate to, hundreds of soldiers died in Northern Ireland. If Members want to look into this, I recommend that they look up the example of Lance Corporal David Jones, who was shot at the moment of challenge, or that of Captain Westmacott. There are others, but those cases give the Committee clear examples of the sorts of risks that had to be taken—and were taken—by our brave, honourable, decent and law-abiding soldiers.

[Mr Francois]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, one that explains very well why veterans have lost confidence in the coronial system. Does he agree with David Johnstone, the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner, who recently 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.”?

[David Davis]

I agree with David Johnstone—by the way, I think he is a very brave commissioner. His predecessor was effectively fired for standing up, and he is still standing up. He is right, and to go off on a slight tangent, our other enemies learn from this, as we are seeing elsewhere in the world today. If we are not very careful, we will end up without one of the best parts of our armed forces, because we ourselves will have destroyed it.

Let me come back to Loughgall. The aim at Loughgall was to destroy the police station and kill the police officers who would be coming off shift at 7 pm—the attack was timed for 7 pm. It was not the first such operation, but the third; it came after Ballygawley, where the IRA shot and killed two police officers before blowing up the station, and the Birches, where they machine-gunned the station—fortunately, they missed people—before blowing it up. At Loughgall, the IRA team attacked the police station in two units. One unit was in a van, carrying a team armed with automatic weapons with the intention of killing the three police officers as they came off duty, and the other unit—of three men, I think—was in a JCB-style digger that was carrying in its bucket a 300 lb to 400 lb bomb.

The attack happened at 7 pm, when the police officers were due to come off shift. Inside the station at the time, because of intelligence that was known, there were three police officers and three SAS soldiers. To be frank, I find it hard to imagine the level of courage it takes to sit in a building, waiting for it to be blown up by a 300 lb or 400 lb bomb. It is beyond my imagination, but that is what they did.

The attack started when the van screeched to a halt, and a number of the unit debussed and opened fire on the police station. They fired a total of 78 rounds; I do not know whether all of them were fired at the police station, but I imagine most of them were. Inside the station, people reported being hit by fragments of bullets as they hit the steel frames of the windows and disintegrated. The digger then crashed through the perimeter fence and the bomb exploded, destroying half the building and injuring the occupants. “Injuring” is too mild a term, frankly—one occupant had a fractured skull, while others had broken bones, and two of the soldiers fell about 10 feet on to rubble. Others sustained hearing injuries.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Carla Lockhart]

The right hon. Member is making a powerful speech. Loughgall is in my constituency, and he has rightly said that the East Tyrone killing wing of the IRA was the most barbaric, bloodthirsty wing of the IRA. It is important to remind the Committee of the names of Eva Martin, Sir Norman Stronge and his son James, the four UDR soldiers killed by the Ballygawley landmine, the two RUC soldiers murdered at Ballygawley station, and Harold Henry of Henry Brothers, all of whom were murdered by these people. When we look at their CV, it certainly does not say that they were just going to blow up a building. The right hon. Gentleman is right to mention the name Jim Lynagh in this regard. He was under investigation for Sir Norman Stronge’s murder at the time of Loughgall. Pádraig McKearney had been convicted of firearms offences, too.

As we discuss this Bill, the Government have the opportunity to stop the second inquest. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Government must do the right thing and include within the legislation your amendment 51 to stop the second inquest and to show that when these people met real soldiers, it saved lives?

[The Chairman]

Order. I know that very important and sensitive points are being raised, but please do not say “you” or “your”. I remind Sir David Davis that many people wish to contribute to this debate.

[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?

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South and Mid Down) (SDLP)]

I thank all those who have contributed to what has been a relatively constructive debate over the past two days. It is not lost on me that our work in this Chamber, and over the coming days in the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, is about the legacy of the troubles, paramilitary transition and a 1990s parading dispute, as if we did not have problems and challenges to deal with in the present day. The sad reality is that despite the seismic changes in our part of the world over the decades, the past is not the past; it infects and affects politics, policing and public services every day. That is why we need to get through it. Most of all, it affects victims and survivors who, through all the decades of change, have been told to wait while the rest of society is allowed to move on, and while the murders of their loved ones are justified, explained away or minimised.

The truth is that for three decades, the needs of those with most to hide have been prioritised, rather than the needs of those with most to heal. It is not the victims who have dragged this out; the lesson that has not been learned by some in this House is that we are still at this three decades on precisely because the information that families need has had to be clawed and prised out of the hands of those with most to hide. For those families and for the Social Democratic and Labour party, this legislation is not about being obsessed with the past. It is not about raking over what has gone on. It is fundamentally about the future and our ability to move forward together. That is why we make no apology for supporting this legislation or for trying to make it better.

I will address today’s clauses and schedules, and some of the amendments and arguments that have featured in the debate, including on the passage of time and the trope about vexatious investigations, and some statistics relating to those issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) rightly set out in powerful detail the healing power accessed by truth for the Hillsborough families and the meaning that that has had for them. Another fact that bears repeating is that tens of thousands of republican and loyalist prisoners went through the justice system for their terrible crimes—crimes that our party stood firmly against in the face of provocation and sectarian horrors from every direction. Nobody here is calling those people heroes. Imperfect as that justice was, it did take place. Those who wish to describe those people as heroes—none of whom are sitting on these Benches or anywhere else—are bolstered by the failure to show any sort of nuance, and by the blind defence of some of the most brutal killings of the troubles.

We understand the pride that many in this Chamber feel for the British Army. We understand that of the 300,000 men—mostly men—and women who served, the vast majority did go out to try to keep the peace and to serve. We also need to restate that the number who have been investigated is practically in single figures. We acknowledge that many of the soldiers were subjected to horrors. We acknowledge their pain and the interventions of many of their families who are seeking access to truth, the same as any other family, because that is what this is about—not lawfare and revisionism.

I have to ask people to be careful with their language, when they use terms like “IRA lawyers”. Do Members know what has happened to people in the past when they have been named in this Chamber as IRA lawyers? They were shot dead in front of their families. Can we have a little caution in some of the language we are using?

This Bill is about the healing power of information and the right of families to access it. That right was powerfully articulated not only in terms of the Hillsborough families, but in the report published last month into the murder of Rory O’Kelly, a founding member of our party. He was a decent man and a family man who represented the non-violent civil rights protesters. He was brutally murdered while attending a funeral in his hometown by the Provisional IRA, because of his belief in and his professional service to the rule of law. His case in the report, released last month with feedback from his family, gives some sense of the release and the comfort that families can find in investigations, even if, in that case, no prosecution follows. It should be read and understood by those who want to smear those who support this legislation as being republicans involved in IRA cheerleading.

We all know that prosecutions will not follow in most cases, but that certainly does not mean they should be off the table when the evidence leads that way. That brings me to the amendment that would design in a veto role for the Attorney General in London. That could undermine the processes we are legislating for today. Independence of the judiciary is a principle worth protecting in general, and especially in these scenarios. I appreciate that this is hard for many in this Chamber to hear, but the UK Government were not some neutral player. They were an active participant many times in our horrible conflict. How can families truly have confidence in in these processes when a veto belongs to a Government who they feel participated actively in the conflict and, on many occasions, covered up that information?

I also want to address some of the fairly wild and mind-bending interventions about the Republic of Ireland, and to welcome the co-operation that the Bill represents, up to and including some op-eds implying that it constitutes a move towards EU re-entry—a combination of some of the greatest hits that we hear in this Chamber. The fact is that the Stormont House agreement, signed in 2014, created the potential for the architecture that would make it possible to go through legacy processes and to capture some of the many themes and patterns that Members on both sides of the Committee have tried to highlight, and created possibilities for us to push back against some of the revisionism and counter-narratives that many of us oppose.