Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution
David Davis Excerpts(3 days, 4 hours ago)
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David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
Today, we speak on behalf of our veterans and the 176,000 members of the public who have so far signed the petition to give veterans protection against the vexatious legal pursuit of our brave heroes. Last week, when I raised this in the House, the Prime Minister dismissed it as “political point scoring.” He is wrong; it is a matter of justice, a matter of ensuring that those who risked their lives to protect our citizens during the troubles know that the state stands behind them.
The Veterans Commissioners for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales—not naive people—issued a joint statement last week in which they said:
“Inconsistent application of justice—particularly where it revisits incidents already thoroughly investigated—serves only to retraumatise veterans and undermine public confidence.”
I agree with that statement entirely. It is exactly consistent with the views of every veteran I have spoken to, and I have spoken to a rather large number of them since February, when I first raised this matter.
Getting this right is not just a matter of historical justice. The legal witch hunt will not end in Northern Ireland; it will cast a shadow over every future conflict that our armed forces engage in and undermine their abilities to defend us. I am a strong advocate of human rights. I think I am the only person in the House to have defeated Governments from both sides, both in the House and in court, on matters of human rights. I take those rights extremely seriously, but this issue is driven more by politics and its exigencies than by human rights.
Take the inquiry process, which both my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) and the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Louise Jones) referred to. The Secretary of State will tell us later, but I imagine that by reinstating the inquiry process, the Government believe they are addressing the implied article 2 right to investigate purportedly unlawful killings. I imagine that is what they are trying to do. Indeed, The Guardian this morning, as we have heard, referred again to the Secretary of State claiming that the Government are protecting the right to investigate 202 murders of British Army soldiers. Really?
I wonder whether that claim comes with an undertaking to take witness statements from the 200 terrorists who committed those murders—who, incidentally, I say to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire, were given pardons by Tony Blair as part of a peace process that began some 40 years ago. I think 423 were released from prison with pardons, and approximately 200 so-called “on-the-runs” received comfort letters. That is not this Act—that is then, yet it continues to exist now.
The Veterans Commissioners continued:
“There can be no moral equivalence between those who served in uniform to uphold peace and the rule of law, and those who sought to destroy it through acts of terrorism.”
Again, I could not agree more. The largest group of people killed during the troubles, by a vast margin, were murdered by paramilitaries, to use the current euphemism for terrorists. They were killed by terrorists. Every single one of those 2,000 people killed was an unlawful killing, to use the phrasing of the coroners courts these days. We do not need a court to establish that. How many of those IRA murders will be subject to inquiry? On the current listing—we have 33 listed—just two such cases, out of 2,000. That is because the major driver for these inquiries is the IRA-Sinn Féin effort to hide their own barbaric acts behind a freedom-fighting façade, trying to rewrite history with themselves as the heroes and the British state as the villains. That is why battles such as Coagh, Clonoe and, very likely soon, Loughgall feature so large in the demands for inquiries and the prosecution of long-retired, innocent British soldiers. All three of those actions were humiliating defeats for the IRA.
Let me be clear: all of the IRA members who died in those exchanges—so-called “victims” in this context—were actively in the process of committing atrocities. They were trying to murder innocent people. At Coagh, they planned to murder an off-duty Ulster Defence Regiment officer. At Clonoe, they attacked the Coalisland police station using an armour-piercing machine gun in an attempt to murder the officers inside. At Loughgall, they drove a bomb-laden digger to blow up a police station and were armed and ready to murder any survivors. All were armed, dangerous and intent on murder. Many of them had killed before, making them a fatal risk to our soldiers—a risk our soldiers had to cope with in split-second decisions. Those are the people we will put on trial if we allow them to lose their protection that we ought to be giving our veterans today.
Look at the individuals involved, starting with Coagh where the inquest heard about Michael Ryan. Ryan was probably responsible for many murders; I can cite two. He shot two UDR officers—one in front of little children at a crossing, the other in front of the officer’s 13-year-old son. That is the sort of people we are dealing with.
As for the IRA’s greatest defeat, Loughgall, the weapons recovered at the scene had been used in over 40 previous murders—there is no doubt about that. Of the IRA members there, McKearney and Arthurs were both involved in the Ballygawley police station attack, which killed a further two policemen. James Lynagh—nicknamed “The Executioner” by the Royal Ulster Constabulary—was believed to have been involved in more than 30 killings, including the cold-blooded assassination of the 80-year-old Sir Norman Stronge, who was largely blind and deaf, as well as his son in front of him.
As for Patrick Kelly, who was the leader of that attack, he led the self-styled East Tyrone brigade, which is believed to have killed around 250 people before Loughgall. By the way, he also took part in the second attempt to assassinate brave UDR officer Glen Espie, who is sitting behind me in the Gallery. He fought off the assassins on two occasions—he was shot twice and fought off IRA assassins twice. If they had not been stopped, there is no doubt that all of these killers would have continued their psychopathic campaign of murder.
The IRA’s campaign of violence was indiscriminate and extended far beyond the island of Ireland. I say to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire that the number was not 722 if you include the police officers and UDR officers. If you include them, 1,073 servants of the British state were killed in the course of defending innocent civilians from those murderers. The IRA is trying to equate the British Government’s actions with that psychopathic behaviour, but of course nothing could be further from the truth.
There is ample evidence of the Army taking enormous risks to arrest rather than take the often safer option of killing the terrorists. Consider the arrest—not the killing—of the South Armagh sniper. He killed seven people, but he was arrested and not killed. Consider the arrest—not the killing—of the killers of Captain Westmacott. They were arrested—not killed—by the rest of his patrol. Even today’s Daily Mail mentioned the rescue of Bernadette McAliskey. There was an attempt to kill her by the Ulster Defence Association. British soldiers rescued her even though she was effectively a political arm of the Irish National Liberation Army.
The clearest demonstration of our real strategy is that, while 1,073 British forces, soldiers and policemen were killed by republican terrorists up until 1994, 145 paramilitaries were killed and 428 were taken prisoner. That means that around three or four were taken prisoner for every one killed. Seven British soldiers or policemen died for every IRA person who was killed. That tells us the strategy and it tells us what the IRA is trying to reverse.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend marvel at the remarkable restraint shown by British soldiers, no matter where these officers or personnel were from across the UK, in dealing with this and never once stepping over the mark in regard to these cases?
David Davis
Absolutely—the phrase I would use is “heroic restraint”. Under those circumstances, restraint means putting their own lives and the lives of their comrades on the line. That is what was going on there, that was the decision that was being taken, and that is what is being challenged today. My right hon. Friend is right about that, and that restraint was institutional. It was not simply heroic soldiers, although of course it was that as well. The yellow card system demanded restraint and issued warnings of proportionality.
Every time a British soldier killed a paramilitary, it was subject to rigorous judicial scrutiny, and when that process failed we ensured the matter was properly investigated. Remember the Saville inquiry, which cost £200 million, took 12 years and consisted of 5,000 pages. What other country in the world would review its own behaviour in that way? I am not going to actually give all the answers, but Members should consider in their own mind whether some of our allies might not have gone quite so far to give everybody justice.
Our soldiers were held to the highest standards of law, yet our Government are rewarding that by effectively threatening them in their retirement. Remember: we have been talking about human rights. That is not a proper reflection of their human rights. They are human beings too, and they have human rights. We should remind ourselves that human rights are founded in natural justice. They do not spring out of the air; they are founded in natural justice. In this process, there is no natural justice for our brave veterans nor, frankly, for the real innocent victims of the troubles. The process gives neither.
The Government are understandably struggling to find a solution, and the Secretary of State knows that I have some sympathy for his position. Let me tell him the criterion for success, because it is very simple. The Government must completely remove the threat of prosecution from our brave veterans who have served their country well and who have already been through the judicial review of every action they took. If the Government repeal the legacy Act without a robust replacement—that is the key point—we hand the narrative back to those who seek to rewrite history. I accept that mistakes were sometimes made, and where they were, those responsible must be held to account. That has been done. But we must not allow politically motivated lawfare to dismantle the very capabilities that make our armed forces precise, lawful, effective and among the best in the world.
David Davis
No, I will not.
What young person today would sign up to serve, knowing that their reward could be a courtroom in retirement? It was through our soldiers’ measured actions that the IRA’s barbaric campaign of terror was confronted and diminished. The number of people killed by the IRA fell by 94% between the periods 1970 to 1974 and 1994 to 1998. That outcome matters. Our soldiers’ intervention prevented countless more deaths. I have now called on the Government six times to end this campaign of a retrospective parody of justice, but I have so far received no meaningful answer. I hope we get one today.
We talk a lot about human rights. In my related Adjournment debate, I read a poem that I first heard at a regimental Remembrance Day service, and I will read it again today because it is extraordinarily relevant:
“It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the peace camp organiser, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
It is the soldier, not the politician…who has given these freedoms.”
Those who freely talk about human rights would do well to remember that our rights, our law, our democracy and our nation were protected by the very veterans who are at risk today. Let us all make one promise: that no British soldier will ever again be abandoned by the very nation they have so bravely protected.
Alex Ballinger
We will hear later from the Secretary of State about some of the protections afforded to veterans, but it is also important to note that in the last 13 years only one veteran has been prosecuted and, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Louise Jones), he received a suspended sentence. So the chance of any veterans who served in Northern Ireland being pulled over the coals again and being sent to prison is vanishingly small, and we need to be realistic about that. We need to be honest with those who signed the petition.
David Davis
The hon. Gentleman says the chance is vanishingly small, yet the Clonoe inquest found there were four unlawful killings, which implies that four cases will go to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Fred Thomas
I have just taken an intervention, so I will not.
Context is king. We have had peace for a generation. Hon. Members have passionately laid out the wrongs, ills and evils of the IRA, going through operational detail, which I appreciate. No one is suggesting that any of those things were justified—that is not the argument that anyone is making—but we are discussing a piece of legislation that, in order to buy the protection of veterans, allows for the protection of terrorists. We are saying, “I don’t think that’s correct.” We need to be able to go after those terrorists. There is a bigger context, isn’t there?
Fred Thomas
Not quite yet. The bigger context is that the world is extremely insecure at the moment. We all hope and pray that this country never has to go to war again. Personally, I think we might have to in the foreseeable future. We hope that does not happen, but when and if it does we need the moral, legal and total legitimacy to go in with extreme force and do what needs to be done. If we pass laws, as we did a year and a half ago, that nibble away at our international reputation for having a lawful and professional military, we are going to struggle in years to come. That is the bigger context that we need to keep in mind.
Stuart Anderson
I think that all the veterans in this room believe that the Government’s current route is wrong—are they misguided, or are they naive? If we go down the route of changing the law in this way, I can guarantee that our veterans will face prosecution for the service that they gave their country for many years.
David Davis
Our veterans do not need to read the Bill; they just need to look at the outcome of the Clonoe inquiry—four potential manslaughter prosecutions.
Stuart Anderson
As I said, we asked our veterans to defend us and to do the hardest things while others slept soundly in their beds at night. I hope that we never face more conflicts in the future, but I believe we will, and we must have a moral compass that means we protect those who protect us. I demand that the Government set out that the route they are taking will ensure that no prosecution of our veterans happens. The Secretary of State has even heard from Members of his own party that they are not reassured about that. We need to see that no veterans are thrown to the wolves, and we need to protect those who have served their country with the utmost pride.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Hilary Benn
On customs, in addition to the SPS deal, the significantly reduced Windsor framework customs arrangements, introduced on 1 May, will of course remain in place, because the UK is not in the EU customs union and we have no intention of joining it. It is clear from the text of the agreement what will be removed and that customs information will remain for SPS goods, but we are working hard to make life easier and introduced changes on 1 May. Reducing the number of lines of information that need to be provided from 75 to 21 is a very good example of how we are working with the EU to make it easier for goods to flow.
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)
The veterans who served in Operation Banner did so with distinction in very difficult circumstances, and ultimately helped to bring about the peace that Northern Ireland now enjoys. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. Together with the Defence Secretary and Minister for Veterans, I am currently considering measures for our legacy legislation to ensure better protections for elderly veterans.
David Davis
Seven hundred and twenty-two of our soldiers were killed by paramilitary murderers during the troubles. Not one of those deaths will be revisited. Because of the current circumstances, however, hundreds of brave men—who, as the Secretary of State says, served their country with honour, patriotism and integrity—face a sword of Damocles of politically motivated trials hanging over them. I can think of no better example of two-tier justice. Whatever the Government do, they have to take that away, and do so in a way that cannot be circumvented by clever, politically motivated lawyers. Will he give the House an undertaking that he will do that?
Hilary Benn
I agree with what the former Defence Secretary said in 2019. He said:
“The British Army uphold British values, which is the rule of law, and that’s what we stand for.”
I advise the right hon. Gentleman to be a little bit careful about using the phrase “politically motivated” prosecutions—I hope I have correctly quoted him. Let us be clear: decisions about any prosecutions, in any cases, are taken by the independent Public Prosecution Service, which is entirely separate from the Executive.
Clonoe Inquest
David Davis Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
May I start by thanking the Secretary of State? The public will not necessarily know that it is very unusual for the Secretary of State to respond to an Adjournment debate, and his presence here demonstrates how important this is and how seriously he takes the task. It also brings back fond memories for me, but that is another matter.
I hope that every Member of Parliament elected to this House believes that upholding justice should be our first priority as a Parliament. The right to life is the first among the rights we should uphold. That justice, and that right, should be even handed, and there should be no exception for agents of the state. I believe that, and accordingly I was a fierce critic of the state in, for example, the unlawful killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, the torture of Binyam Mohamed, and the failure to protect and provide justice for the six Catholics who were murdered at Loughinisland in 1994. There is no general exception when the state gets it wrong. Justice must, by definition, be fair and practical, and I am afraid the findings of the Northern Ireland coroner on the Clonoe incident were neither.
To understand the significance of this inquest ruling, we must consider the context. Operation Banner was the British Army’s longest deployment, spanning from 1969 to 2007. More than 300,000 soldiers served sequentially in Northern Ireland, and despite immense challenges, the British Army performed admirably. They were not beyond reproach—Bloody Sunday is a striking example, I fear—but the massive majority of our soldiers acted with professionalism and restraint in the face of danger.
The troubles led to 3,500 deaths and 50,000 injuries. More than 90% of them were caused or brought about by paramilitaries. The British Army’s rules of engagement were clear—governed by the yellow card, which soldiers carry at all times. Soldiers were required to issue a challenge before using force, unless doing so would put them or others in immediate danger. The intent was clear: to protect innocent lives, while allowing the use of lethal force when it was necessary and reasonable. Some 1,400 members of the security forces died in those troubles. They killed approximately 300 terrorists. Those figures, and that ratio reveal the discipline and restraint of our soldiers and our policemen acting under yellow card rules. They also reflect the personal risk to the soldiers and policemen of observing those rules.
Unsurprisingly, the IRA members never carried a yellow card. They targeted civilians and committed murder without warning. Their methods ranged from torture, followed by a bullet in the back of the head, through to the mass murder of innocent civilians in atrocities such as the Omagh, Claudy and Ballykelly bombings and the utterly cold-blooded Kingsmill executions. Incidentally, the IRA was responsible for more Catholic deaths during the troubles than any other group.
The IRA members were terrorists, but we should not forget that they were also criminals specialising in organised crime. They made £5 million or £6 million a year from protection rackets, smuggling, extortion, drugs, tax fraud, state benefit fraud, fraudulent front companies, illegal gambling, theft and other crimes throughout the island of Ireland. If colleagues want evidence of that criminality, in 1990 I carried out an investigation of those activities, which was written up on 6 November of that year in the Financial Times. The point is that the IRA was both a criminal gang and a terrorist organisation. Now it is trying to rewrite history.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I commend the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He has been a stalwart supporter of the armed forces on every occasion in the time that I have been in this House. He has been a supporter of what is right and of justice, and he sets a standard for us all to follow. I commend him for that, and I thank him. I also thank him for working alongside my party leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), and the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) on these issues and for moving things forward with this Adjournment debate.
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the message sent through this coroner’s report is a massive overstepping of power? It will have security implications for every branch of policing and the armed forces in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and it must be struck down as not only ultra vires but factually incorrect. Those who carried out the attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary station did so with the intent to take life, and they were rightly assessed as doing that and dealt with in an appropriate manner. This republican rewriting of the truth must end now in this Chamber.
David Davis
The hon. Member is exactly right, and he prefaces what I intend to say. He repeats the point that his party leader made in the urgent question, when he said that the judgment was ultra vires. I believe the right hon. Gentleman was right in that, although I leave that to the lawyers.
To answer the rest of the question from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), we have to return to the actual facts of the Clonoe incident. The self-styled East Tyrone brigade was one of the most active Provisional IRA units. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it undertook a surge of activity, pursuing a Maoist-style murder strategy. I think it was called Lynagh’s strategy at the time.
In August 1988, eight soldiers were killed by a Provisional IRA bomb at Ballygawley. On 7 March 1989, two Protestants were shot dead at a garage in Coagh. A former member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, Derek Ferguson, was murdered in 1991, also at Coagh. An attack against Glenanne barracks on 31 May 1991 left three soldiers dead. It is also thought that some of their members were involved in the Derryard attack in 1989, notably using a heavy machine gun, probably the DShK we will see later in this story, to kill two British soldiers.
In February 1992, the RUC special branch found out that the IRA was planning a number of attacks on 15 and 16 February. It had information that an IRA team, armed with a 12.7 mm Soviet DShK heavy machine gun and three Kalashnikov rifles, would attack the Coalisland police station. The intelligence indicated that the attack would be mounted from the Clonoe chapel car park, so the SAS commander’s plan was to arrest the terrorists as they formed up at the car park, preventing the attack on the police station altogether and seizing the heavy machine gun.
The commander did not know how many terrorists, vehicles or weapons would be involved, but it was thought that as many as 20 IRA members could be involved. The troop sergeant assessed the rather straggly hedge line adjacent to the car park to be the only suitable position where partial concealment was possible, but it notably did not provide cover from gunfire. The SAS team carried the standard Heckler & Koch G3K rifle and one soldier had a general purpose machine gun. Perhaps more notably in this context, some had shotguns loaded with alternate rounds designed to smash windscreens and deliver tear gas to immobilise the drivers and stop the vehicles. The soldiers also carried caltrops to wreck the tyres of vehicles attempting to escape. The armour-piercing rounds that the judge referred to could penetrate body armour, but their primary purpose in this context was to penetrate the engine blocks of the vehicles and stop them.
The equipment was all designed to stop escape and allow arrest—that is the key point. The plan was to close in on the IRA operatives and to arrest them as they assembled and mounted the heavy machine gun on to the vehicle in the chapel car park. At 7.40 pm on that dark February night, 12 members of the SAS were in position on the boundary of the Clonoe chapel car park, behind the hedgerow. The soldiers observed the movements of five cars in and out of the car park. They were assumed to be reconnaissance vehicles scouting out the car park for the lorry to which the DShK was to be attached.
However, the intelligence briefing was wrong—an error that ended up creating chaos and extreme danger. Instead, at around 22:40 hours, the lorry-mounted DShK was used to attack the Coalisland police station. Sixty rounds were fired at close range from the DShK and from the Kalashnikovs. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, the attackers’ intent was clear: to kill police officers. They were all would-be murderers; of that, there can be no doubt. The gunfire could clearly be heard and the tracer bullets were observed by the SAS patrol in the car park at Clonoe.
After a minute or two, the soldiers heard another burst of gunfire. The soldiers, of course, did not know that that was simply bravado. For all they and their commander knew, hiding behind their hedge, the murder gang were engaging other soldiers or other policemen. Within a minute, the lorry appeared out of the darkness, driven at breakneck speed, lurching around corners and with its engine screaming in too low a gear. As it drove into the car park, the IRA truck’s headlights illuminated the SAS position behind the hedgerow. At that point, the soldiers did not know whether they had been spotted. The soldiers then stood up, advanced on the occupants of the lorry and three other vehicles in the car park with the lorry, and opened fire. Four IRA members were shot dead, four were wounded, one of whom was arrested at the scene and, notably, given first aid by the soldiers, and others fled in cars.
Now we come forward to February 2025, when Mr Justice Michael Humphreys ruled that the use of lethal force by the SAS in this incident was unlawful. The ruling is demonstrably wrong and ignores the plain facts of the case. The SAS soldiers operated under the control of the police force, and the operation was carried out with police officers in close proximity. They faced heavily armed terrorists who had just carried out an attack on a police station—lethally, for all they knew. They did not know how many terrorists there were, but they assumed that there could be up to 20. They did not know how many vehicles there were or how many weapons were in the other cars. That creates a number of problems for issuing a challenge, which is the first option under the yellow card system. While it may be reasonable to stand up and issue a challenge to either one terrorist or a small number of terrorists who could be seen and covered while they respond, the circumstance is completely different when there is an unknown number of antagonists in an unknown number of cars with an unknown number of weapons.
The probability of one of 20, let us say, deciding to fire on the soldiers is much higher, particularly when that individual may be out of sight of the patrol. That is doubly so when one remembers that this band of killers had just attempted to murder many policemen and had returned in a high state of excitement, pumped up with adrenalin and firing their weapons in the air. Secondly, the fact that the SAS commander did not know where they all were meant that his issuing a challenge could expose his entire troop to a lethal crossfire. Remember: this was happening on a dark February night at about 10.45 pm. Issuing a challenge under those circumstances could have amounted to collective suicide. Circumstances such as that are precisely why the yellow card rules allow a soldier to fire without challenge when the danger is too great.
I find it hard to imagine a more clearcut case that allows firing without challenge, but in his ruling the judge ignored several significant facts and appears to have been naive in his view of others. His selection of facts appears to be extremely partial. For example, the judge made much of the SAS’s use of armour-piercing bullets, but he made no mention of the fact that the anti-aircraft gun the IRA was using fired armour-piercing incendiary rounds five times the size of any rifle bullets, or the fact that they could be fired at a rate of 600 to 1,200 rounds a minute. Those bullets can pierce concrete walls or shoot down aircraft at a mile range. The machine gun had just been deployed and could have eliminated the entire SAS patrol in a matter of seconds. It was a terrible weapon, and capturing it before it could be used to kill more people was an important part of the SAS tasking.
The judge accepted assertions that the IRA weapons all had their safety catches engaged. Frankly, if that were true, there was no way at all for the SAS commander or the troops to know that at the beginning of the fight. In fact, how likely was that? Let us take the DShK, which the forensic examiner said had its working parts forward, with no round in the chamber. The gun was mounted on a lorry that had just been driven back at breakneck speed from Coalisland in a few minutes. During the few minutes of that journey back, getting the gun into the state described would have required nine actions, some of which require two hands, while hanging on to the side of a lurching truck. I am afraid it all sounds just a bit improbable. The forensics specialist did not actually arrive until two hours and 45 minutes after the action, at a scene contaminated by firemen, police, soldiers and other staff—indeed, she complained about that very contamination.
Against the forensic specialist’s views, we must take the observations of soldiers on the ground and other evidence. Four soldiers reported seeing flashes from the back of the lorry, which they interpreted as muzzle flashes. We are not talking about inexperienced soldiers: they would know what they were looking at. Two soldiers heard rounds striking the ground to their right, near the hedgerow where the SAS was hiding. The forensic examiner documented bullet strike marks on the hedgerow. One soldier received a bullet wound to the face that knocked him to the ground. Without any forensic evidence, it was attributed to a ricochet, which implausibly would have required the round to go through a 180° change of direction.
Soldier G heard the exchange of gunfire and saw a soldier go down, which
“confirmed my belief that the terrorists were shooting at us”.
There was also an interview taken by the Garda, in the Republic of Ireland, of one of the IRA drivers, who said he could not understand why his colleagues had opened fire. He had been in a position in which he was able to judge where the fire was coming from and obviously believed that it was from his own side. He refused to sign the interview notes, presumably when he considered the consequences for him back home of giving away such critical data.
All of this was countered by the claim that no bullet casings were found on the ground in the car park, but a number were found in the lorry, and one of the cars present appeared to have had a general-purpose machine gun and an AKM on board. If those weapons were fired from inside a car, there would of course have been no casings on the ground in the car park. Instead, GPMG live ammunition and disintegrating links were found in that car, as well as an AKM casing from a rifle other than those recovered, implying that a fourth AKM had been fired from the car. The car had all its seats other than the driver’s laid flat, which was standard practice for the IRA when using a hatchback as a weapons platform. The car escaped and was then set on fire, and the fire services were kept away from it while it burned out—another standard IRA tactic to destroy forensic evidence. I am afraid that this ruling exposes the double standards that have plagued the legacy of the troubles.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is giving an important and telling speech on a very important topic. As he rightly says, these soldiers were subject to well-defined rules of engagement. He has described the IRA as a terrorist organisation, but what he has not said is that at the time, it was the most sophisticated terrorist organisation in the world. The soldiers he talks about were operating under orders, in a chain of command and on the Queen’s business, and could not respond. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a grotesque double standard here, and that not only is this an injustice, but the Government’s position is potentially deeply corrosive of morale, as well as deeply unjust to the veterans?
David Davis
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. Of course, he is the Member for Hereford, so many of the people who have retired and will face these threats will be his constituents. He and I are long-standing supporters of human rights in this country, and have both defended article 2, for example, but this case is a misuse of article 2. The people who wrote the European convention on human rights were recently out of the second world war—they did not write it to be interpreted in this way. He has made a double point.
Returning to my right hon. Friend’s point about the IRA, since the events in question, the Good Friday agreement has allowed for the release of convicted terrorists in order to achieve an end to the bloodshed. I guess we all agree with that, yet we continue to persecute those who fought against the terrorists. These persecutions are conducted decades after the fact, without any new evidence being presented to give reason for the reopening of cases. After the action, everybody involved was questioned thoroughly to establish the facts—what the intelligence was, what the arrest plans were, and what happened. On the basis of that questioning, on 15 October 1992—with the evidence close to hand and the events fresh in the witnesses’ minds, and when investigation of everything was possible—the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland concluded that there should be no prosecution of the soldiers. There was no case to answer.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for bringing this debate before the House, and for the quality of his exposition. Does he agree that this case highlights the single biggest problem that we face, which is that the IRA kept no records at all, and if it did have any, it destroyed them? Many IRA members got letters of comfort from the then Government, quietly and secretly, which ended up killing any chance of prosecution. Soldiers who served have none of that; they are left out in the open, and can be prosecuted, while many IRA members have disappeared and can live a life without further charge.
David Davis
My right hon. and gallant Friend makes the central point of the argument perfectly. Here we are, 33 years later, with a Northern Ireland coroner judging events in retrospect, without any new evidence, and finding that soldiers acted unlawfully. That is entirely at odds with the result of the legal investigation immediately after the operation in 1992. I believe in a process of peace and reconciliation that allows closure for all the relatives of the dead, but he makes a good point: there are no records, and that goes for the vast majority of the people who died in the troubles. That makes this a process not of peace and reconciliation, but of vindictiveness and vengeance. It is an attempt to rewrite history, not find the truth.
There have been countless attempts to take British soldiers to court for their actions during the troubles, but how many ex-IRA combatants have faced the same thing? Not one. Not a single IRA member has been pursued over the 2,000 deaths—all murders—for which the IRA were responsible. Our veterans are being punished in their retirement years for decisions they made when serving their country. The psychological impact on them, and on soldiers serving today, is enormous. The ruling also undermines the integrity of present and future operations. We cannot send soldiers into high-risk environments, ask them to undertake brutal training, and expect them to operate with confidence if they fear being condemned decades later.
The ruling on the Clonoe incident risks further persecution of the British soldiers who served during the troubles. The Government must ensure that those who serve our country today are protected from such partisan distortions of justice. Our soldiers deserve better. What we are seeing with the Clonoe ruling is historical revisionism that seeks to punish those who served our country in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances. The law must be applied fairly, and we must not allow politics to undermine the legacy of those who fought to protect our freedoms.
The Government—I say this directly to the Secretary of State—gave notice at the time of the election that they intended to remove the element of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 that protects soldiers and police who served during the troubles from prosecution. The judgment from the Northern Ireland coroner on the Clonoe incident exposes a number of soldiers to potential prosecution. The Ministry of Defence is quite properly seeking a judicial review of this inquiry, but even if it wins, we must put in place statutory protections for our soldiers, now and in the future, from this persecution. These are men who served their country with honour, heroism and skill, sometimes in the face of the most incredible danger. They are now no doubt hoping for a well-earned peaceful retirement, not a future of endless stress and psychological torture. If the Government leave them open to persecution it will be shameful, and will serve only to further the IRA’s attempt to rewrite the history of Northern Ireland.
Many Members may have received letters on this issue from retired Special Air Service soldiers. Most of them say in those letters that they support human rights, but they do more than that; they guarantee those rights for the rest of us. Let me end by quoting the words of Charles Province, the American soldier and poet:
“It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the peace camp organiser, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, who serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag.
It is the soldier, not the politician…who has given these freedoms.”
These soldiers are the guarantors of our security, our freedom and our justice. I say to the Secretary of State, surely we owe them no less than security, freedom and justice in return.
Hilary Benn
I am not familiar with that particular bit of evidence. The right hon. Gentleman cites one group of lawyers who hold one view, but it will not surprise the House if I say that it would be possible to find another group of lawyers who hold a different view. The purpose of the courts is to adjudicate between the various arguments that are put and reach a decision, and we respect the judgments of the court. It is not possible to have a legal system or a coronial system where we get all the verdicts we like and we are guaranteed to never get verdicts we do not like. The fact is— [Interruption.] We have appealed some aspects of the judgments. The Government came into office committed to removing conditional immunity because we thought it was wrong to give terrorists immunity from prosecution for the crimes they have committed.
I would also say to the right hon. Gentleman that the truth is that the prospect of prosecutions is diminishing with each passing year. Many of the families that I have met recognise that no one is going to be held to account for what happened to their loved ones—they just want to find the answers.
David Davis
One point the Secretary of State has not yet come to is that there is an excruciating element of double jeopardy here. Every single case we are talking about was investigated carefully by the police at the time—the soldiers and the commanders involved were interrogated as to the intelligence, the plans and the outcome at the time, with all the information available. What we are seeing here is that soldiers were effectively found innocent 33 years ago, only for us to come back and do it all over again to get another answer that we want. He must understand that the soldiers see this as terrible double jeopardy.
May I bring the Secretary of State to the underlying principle of the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis)? What we are all after is a mechanism, however that is found through the law, that will allow us to release these soldiers from a lifetime sentence of being pursued by the courts under what is, in my view, frankly, a misuse of article 2. If it is true that, as my right hon. Friend says, people like Philippe Sands—hardly a hard-line right winger—think that we can do this, will the Secretary of State give the House an undertaking that he will make every effort to deliver on that aim?
Hilary Benn
I would like to give the right hon. Gentleman an assurance that when parliamentary time allows, I plan to bring forward legislation to try to find a way forward. The House will be the judge when the legislation is published. I am consulting widely on it and will continue to do so, including with veterans and others. I am not naive about the prospect of coming up with proposals that command widespread support, but I would simply observe that the last set of proposals signally failed to command support among the political parties and many people in Northern Ireland. That is why I am having to deal with the consequence of repeated findings of incompatibility, because of that legacy legislation, with the European convention on human rights.
When I last stood at the Dispatch Box to address this question, I said that we owed a great debt of attitude to those who served in Operation Banner with such distinction. I wish to repeat that statement tonight. The true legacy of those who served during that awful period is to be found in the peace that the people of Northern Ireland now enjoy. If we are being honest, the armed forces did their job.
The Good Friday agreement was itself not able to get to grips with exactly how legacy would be dealt with—those involved had enough on their plate to secure that extraordinary agreement on that miraculous Good Friday. We as elected representatives have to recognise that since the signing of the Good Friday agreement, we have not been able to agree and implement measures that effectively address the legacy of the past in a way that is balanced, proportionate, transparent, fair and equitable, and that have a chance of commanding a measure of public support. That is the objective of the Government. I will do my best to achieve it, but the House will be the judge.
Question put and agreed to.
Clonoe Inquest
David Davis Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to make a statement on the coroner’s ruling in the Clonoe inquest.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)
On 16 February 1992, a heavily armed unit of the Provisional IRA carried out an attack on Coalisland police station armed with a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun and three AKM rifles. Approximately 60 rounds were fired, but thankfully no one was injured. Following the attack, the IRA unit proceeding to a car park where they were engaged by soldiers of the Army’s specialist military unit. This resulted in four men, Patrick Vincent, Sean O’Farrell, Peter Paul Clancy and Kevin O’Donnell, being shot and killed by the soldiers.
On 6 February, Mr Justice Humphreys, sitting as a coroner in the inquest into the circumstances of those deaths at Clonoe chapel, found that the use of lethal force by the soldiers was unjustified and that
“the operation was not planned and controlled in such a way as to minimise to the greatest extent possible the need for recourse to lethal force.”
The coroner further found that the soldiers did not hold
“an honest and genuinely held belief”
that the use of force was necessary to defend themselves or others.
These are clearly very significant matters that require careful consideration. I know that the Ministry of Defence is considering the coroner’s finding. Therefore there is, unfortunately, a limit to what I am able to say in relation to the findings themselves, particularly given that there is also an ongoing civil case relating to these events. However, it is clear the Government must take such findings very seriously. We owe a great debt to our armed forces—
Hilary Benn
I accept that entirely, Mr Speaker. I was merely pointing out, as I think your statement alluded to, that there is an ongoing civil case.
We owe a great debt to our armed forces. The vast majority of those who served in Operation Banner during the troubles did so with distinction. They operated in the most dangerous and difficult circumstances to protect the citizens of the United Kingdom. During the troubles, over 1,000 members of the security forces lost their lives in that endeavour. It is right that we hold our armed forces to the highest standards. We must also recognise the extreme circumstances that they faced. That is what sets them apart from the terrorist organisations who indiscriminately murdered over 3,000 people during the troubles.
David Davis
I thank the Secretary of State for taking this statement personally. I know that he did not have to, so I thank him for that. The Government gave notice at the election that they intended to remove the element of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 that protects soldiers and police who served during the troubles from prosecution. Last week’s frankly speculative judgment from the Northern Ireland coroner into the Clonoe shootings now exposes a number of soldiers to potential prosecution. These are men who served their country with honour, heroism and skill, sometimes in the face of the most incredible danger. They are now mostly in their 60s and 70s and no doubt hoping for a well-earned peaceful retirement. In his statement in December, the Secretary of State of spoke of
“recognising the dedicated service of the vast majority of police officers, members of the armed forces and the security services who did so much to keep the people of Northern Ireland safe during the troubles.”[Official Report, 4 December 2024; Vol. 758, c. 419.]
So precisely what are the Government going to do to stop the vengeful pursuit of decent patriotic people? If the Government leave them open to persecution, it will frankly be shameful and serve only to further the IRA’s attempt to rewrite the history of Northern Ireland.
Hilary Benn
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for asking this urgent question. As he will be aware, this inquest was part of the five-year plan established by the former Lord Chief Justice, and because the hearings were held prior to the legacy Act 1 May cut-off, the inquest was able to be concluded. For the avoidance of doubt, it is not the result of anything that this Government have done.
The Government set out in our election manifesto and the King’s Speech our commitment to repeal and replace the legacy Act, because it did something quite remarkable in uniting the political parties and communities of Northern Ireland in opposition to it. It is a fatally flawed piece of legislation that has been found, in a number of respects, to be incompatible with our obligations under the European convention on human rights. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] This Government believe in upholding our commitment to the European convention on human rights, even if other Members do not share that view.
I set out in my statement to the House of Commons in December the approach that we are taking, and I will bring forward further proposals in due course. I echo what the right hon. Gentleman said about the service of our armed forces, the police and security services during those terribly dark, difficult and bloody days of the troubles.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Fleur Anderson
My thoughts are with the family and friends, and all those affected by the murder of Mary Ward. Every woman deserves to feel safe. There is what has been called an epidemic of violence against women and girls in Northern Ireland. I join my hon. Friend in welcoming the new strategy. We need stronger action by the justice system and more support for frontline services in order to tackle harassment wherever it is—in homes, schools, workplaces, and on our streets. We need to challenge and change misogynistic attitudes and behaviours. That will need urgent action, and us working together, and this Government stand ready to do that.
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)
I meet regularly with the Chief Constable and his team to discuss a range of issues. While the Chief Constable has operational independence, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office provides oversight of those powers to ensure that their use is necessary, proportionate and in accordance with the law.
David Davis
At a recent hearing of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, it became apparent that the Northern Ireland police force had been caught surveilling journalists’ telephones on the basis that they had received secret documents from whistleblowers. The reason for the secrecy of those documents was to cover up the embarrassment of the Royal Ulster Constabulary about its handling of the Loughinisland massacre. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the future use of surveillance powers by the Northern Ireland police?
Hilary Benn
I am indeed aware of the background to this case. The original search warrants were quashed and the police investigation was discontinued. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal is currently looking at this case, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment while that is ongoing. The Chief Constable has set up the McCullough review to look at the wider issue, and the right hon. Gentleman may well wish to make representations to that review.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(2 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
The Government remain committed to two new hospital schemes for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust at Hammersmith Hospital and Charing Cross Hospital, and for St Mary’s Hospital as part of the new hospital programme. We have expanded the programme, as the hon. Gentleman knows, to include buildings with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete and we need to address those as a priority for the safety of staff and patients. However, we still expect the majority of schemes in cohort 4 to be in construction before 2030. I know that the Department will continue to keep him updated on progress.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this important topic. We take all allegations of breaches of export control seriously. My understanding is that officials in the Department for Business and Trade are currently investigating the allegations made in the recent press article cited. We will not accept collaborations that compromise our national security. That is why we have made our systems more robust, including expanding the scope of the Academic Technology Approval Scheme to protect UK research from ever-changing global threats, but my right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that and he has my assurance that we will keep on it.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
We are putting record investment in the NHS—£33.9 billion—and a total of £12 billion is now going into mental healthcare. That is a record sum.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Following on from the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) about Huawei, the Australian agencies analysed the involvement of any element of Huawei in their 5G system and determined that any involvement would lead to a major risk of both sabotage and espionage. Can the Prime Minister give an undertaking that this country will lead the Five Eyes and NATO to create an alternative to Huawei in the next two years?
The Prime Minister
Yes, we will of course do nothing either to endanger our critical national security infra- structure or to prejudice co-operation with Five Eyes partners, as my right hon. Friend has rightly suggested, and we will work to ensure that high-risk vendors cannot dominate our market.
European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill
David Davis ExcerptsWednesday 8th January 2020
(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Walker
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Of course we have to take action on this across a number of areas, but the right place to do that is not in this legislation. We do not need further reporting requirements such as would be required by amendment 4, unilateral measures such as those set out in amendment 26, or legally binding negotiating objectives.
In new clause 21, my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) shows his admirable ambition for the UK’s independent trade policy enabled by leaving the European Union. We absolutely share those ambitions. I can assure my right hon. Friend, who was a privilege to work with, that the Government will be working in the national interest to kickstart the UK’s international trade policy in both bilateral and multilateral fora. I know that he has discussed this with the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. However, he will know, perhaps better than almost anyone else in this Chamber, how important it is that the Government do not have their hands tied in negotiation, so I would ask him not to press his amendment.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for that undertaking, but will he give me one other undertaking, which is that the United Kingdom will take its place in the World Trade Organisation immediately we leave the European Union, which will be, after all, on 1 February?
Mr Walker
I hesitate to give that from the Dispatch Box because I am not a Trade Minister, but I am pretty sure that if my right hon. Friend asked a Trade Minister that question, the answer he would get is yes.
The Government have been given a mandate following the UK general election to get Brexit done. That is what this Bill aims to achieve. The withdrawal agreement and the protocol deliver a good deal for the United Kingdom and leave the door open to improving their operation in the Joint Committee to minimise disruption to businesses and individuals right across the United Kingdom, including in Northern Ireland. I urge hon. and right hon. Members to withdraw their amendments and progress this Bill so that we can get on with delivering on our commitments to the whole country. This will kick-start a bright new future for the people of all four nations of the United Kingdom.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I call Mr Bernard Jenkin. [Interruption.] Where is the fellow? He is not here. We shall hear from someone who is here. I call Mr David Davis.
Mr Speaker
Order. I know the House is in a state of some perturbation but we must hear from the right hon. Gentleman. When he has composed himself, we will hear from him.
Mr Davis
Thank you, Mr Speaker. For five or six years, the number of national insurance numbers issued to EU migrants has been hundreds of thousands higher than the official immigration figures. That implies that the official immigration figures may be a dramatic underestimate. We can know the truth of the matter only if Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs releases its data on active EU national insurance numbers, but HMRC has refused to do so. Will the Prime Minister instruct HMRC to release those statistics immediately so that we can understand the truth about European Union immigration?
The Prime Minister
I am glad that we have the single transferable question, if not the single transferable vote! It is very good to hear from my right hon. Friend. The reason why the numbers do not tally is that a person can get a national insurance number for a very short-term visit, and people who are already here but without a national insurance number can apply for one, so the numbers are quite complex. HMRC has given greater information, and I will ensure that that continues to be the case.