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.