Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)]

I would like to speak to amendment 130 and clause 36. My son, myself, my father, my grandfather and my great-grandfather—and pretty well all my ancestors forever—have served in the Army. I was a subaltern in Northern Ireland at the peak of the troubles in 1984, and my regiment, the Queen’s Own Highlanders, saw the death of the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel David Blair, and 17 more soldiers who were killed in the two explosives in Warrenpoint in 1979. The pain of those deaths was still very live among many of the regiment who were serving five years later when I was serving, but despite the pain, I do not recollect a single person who felt any desire to take revenge. The professionalism of the British soldier could be depended on.

I have a son who has just left the Army after several years as a trooper. I told him that I was coming to this debate, and he told me an anecdote. He said, “Well, let me tell you a story. There are four guys, all armed, and they are clearing a building in the middle east. They go upstairs, and as they go along the corridor, out of the back of the building comes a man, and in front of him is a female. Over her shoulder he is firing AK-47 bullets, and spraying them. They shoot that man and that woman—they kill them, but they had no option. It happened on the spur of the moment, and they could not really decide how to get out of it, or they would all have been dead.”

Is there any chance that those British soldiers could be charged with murder? If there is, I would strongly recommend the young I meet not to join the Army. British soldiers in my day were always able to depend on the support of the British public, the Government and the judiciary. In my time in Northern Ireland, we knew that we had our backs covered, and that we had to abide by the law. What we did not have then was sharp-suited lawyers looking for any opportunity to pursue us in court, possibly for decades. The recruitment of soldiers is extremely poor at the moment, and unless the concerns of those serving, and of veterans, are put to rest, we will not be able to rebuild our fighting force to the strength we need.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

Almost three decades on from the Good Friday agreement, the challenge of legacy remains unsolved. That is so important to remember when agreeing on the amendments tonight and moving forward with the Bill tomorrow. It is an honour to be part of a process that will be so historic for the future of Northern Ireland. I praise the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South (Hilary Benn), my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Matthew Patrick), the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee for all their work on the Bill and for bringing us to this place. I also thank the victims groups and individual victims, many of whom have not spoken out in this process, but of whom we are thinking.

I praise the veterans—my grandfather is from Northern Ireland and served in the British Army—as well as Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, who are bringing forward legislation all the time to create a peace for Northern Ireland, and the community leaders who are building that peace every day. I say to people across Northern Ireland that we hope that passing this Bill and agreeing to the Government amendments, which I support, will bring us closer to the permanent peace, justice and reconciliation that everyone in Northern Ireland, and across the UK, can build on.

As we proceed this Committee stage, every clause and amendment should be judged by one simple test: will it help victims and bereaved families to finally get the answers that they have waited decades to receive? They have woken up waiting for those answers every single morning, and although they do not want to, they are passing that wait on to future generations—to their own children—and looking ahead to it being passed on and on with despair. We want to draw a line, and the Bill should enable peace and reconciliation to set everyone in Northern Ireland free from the dark past. Earlier this afternoon, members of the Victims and Survivors Forum spoke to MPs about parents, siblings and grandparents killed during the troubles. One victim said:

“It has now been 53 years since my father was murdered. I have moved on from justice. I just want the truth.”

That window of truth, and the potential for getting that truth, is closing.

More than 3,500 people lost their lives during the troubles, and nearly a third of those deaths remain unsolved. Behind every case is a family still living with those unanswered questions. The greatest risk before us is delay, so for those Members who are considering voting no to the Government amendments and no to the Bill, that is what is before us. Every year that passes makes establishing the truth harder. Witnesses pass away, memories fade and evidence is lost. Doing nothing means accepting that some families may never learn what happened to their loved ones, instead of accepting this carefully balanced Bill. The former Secretary of State and the Secretary of State have stopped and listened so carefully to victims, and have brought forward the Bill and the amendments.

As has been said, the previous legacy Act failed to command confidence across Northern Ireland. It closed down routes that families had pursued for years and left many feeling further away from truth and accountability. The Bill takes a different approach. The reformed legacy commission will have stronger investigative and disclosure powers, and a clear focus on providing families with as much information as possible, as well as learning from the Kenova inquiry and that victim-led process—a way of taking action that means asking victims at every stage what they want to know. Not every case will lead to a prosecution. Many are now 40 or 50 years old. However, where prosecutions are possible—it has been proven already that they are—families should have the fullest possible account of what happened.

I welcome Government amendment 192, which ensures that documentary evidence is considered before witnesses are contacted, and requires compelling new evidence before individuals are approached. I welcome new clauses 33 and 34, and amendments 148 and 149, which establish a statutory victims and survivors advisory group. This is so important—I see that it has come from many conversations with WAVE, which has been mentioned before, as well as other victims groups. Those groups have asked for a statutory place where victims’ voices will be heard. If the process is to command confidence, victims’ voices must be at its heart, as they will be with the new advisory group. I also welcome new clause 35, which states that the legacy commission must carry out its duties

“in a way that avoids any unnecessary cost”,

because too often, lawyers are the only winners in this process. However, can the Secretary of State explain how unnecessary costs in the process will be checked and reported to the House?

The provisions relating to inquests are equally important. Families who have fought for years for answers deserve a process that is effective, independent and focused on delivering outcomes. Alongside that victim-centred approach, the Bill contains important protections for veterans. The overwhelming majority of those who served during Operation Banner—we have gratitude for them—did so with courage, professionalism and distinction. I welcome the statutory duty to avoid the unnecessary duplication of previous investigations—the rinse and repeat clause—as well as new clause 32, which recognises the operational circumstances in which veterans served. These amendments provide real clarity for some things that were in the Bill already but were needed to provide assurance.

I welcome amendment 240 and new clauses 45 and 46, which protect veterans from inappropriate cold-calling by requiring contact to be made through the Ministry of Defence. The provisions protecting older witnesses are also sensible and proportionate, and a result of many conversations with veterans groups. Supporting victims and protecting veterans are not competing objectives—there needs to be a careful balance, and a credible legacy framework must do both. It was never going to be easy, but the Bill achieves that balance.

The Secretary of State has reiterated in this debate that there can be no moral equivalence between those who served lawfully in our armed forces and police service, and those who carried out acts of terrorism. The IRA, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defence Association and the Irish National Liberation Army were responsible for the overwhelming majority of deaths during the troubles. Nobody involved in such acts should receive immunity from accountability. I therefore welcome the removal of the previous Act’s immunity provisions and the restoration of routes to accountability under the rule of law.

I also welcome the greater consistency and oversight sought through new clauses 49 and 50. However, on new clause 50, which would require the Attorney General’s consent for serious troubles-related prosecutions, victims and survivors have raised with me concerns about independence and how the safeguard will be perceived. Will the Secretary of State reassure the House that the new clause will not create the impression that there is a special hurdle for Crown-related cases, and that prosecutorial—that is a hard word; I must practise it more—decisions will continue to be taken independently, and will be applied equally to all those under investigation? This is about being equal under the law.

[Chris Bryant]

I might as well answer that now: yes, completely. That was recommended by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. It is important to note that the Attorney General, who is also the Advocate General in Northern Ireland, would have only a quasi-judicial function, and would use precisely the same prosecutorial process as they would for any other prosecuting decision.

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank the Secretary of State for that helpful clarification, which will be welcomed by many of the victims and survivors I have spoken to.

More than 25 years after the Good Friday agreement and 12 years after the Stormont agreement, Northern Ireland has been transformed, as I saw time and again, and as I see now. Growth is much higher than in the rest of the UK and unemployment is lower; there is much to build on. However, too many families still carry the burden of unanswered questions, and that holds Northern Ireland back in many ways. We cannot change the past, but we can ensure that the passage of time does not become the final barrier to truth. I also welcome part 4 of the legacy Act. It has been mentioned only one other time in the debate, but it is a really important part of the legislation.

I support the Government’s approach, because it offers the best chance in a generation to deliver what victims and families have sought for far too long: answers.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Reform)]

In the seven years that I have been a Member of this House, I do not think that I have been in a more respectful, positive and high-quality debate. There have been some absolutely outstanding contributions from across the House. I am not going to reach that standard, but I am proud to participate in the debate. I particularly acknowledge the contributions made by colleagues from Northern Ireland. Having visited a number of times recently, I can attest that they do politics pretty well there; there is a standard of speech-making that reflects the seriousness of politics there, and we have all benefited from that this evening.

My observation about the Bill and the amendments brought forward by the Government is that they essentially still fail on a core moral principle, which I will come to. The amendments that have been adduced as improving the Bill and addressing the concerns that have been raised do not, I am afraid, offer new protections. Many of them relate to measures that are already in force and could be applied, particularly those on the opportunities for anonymity and remote hearings.

The amendments and the new clauses are mostly simply important moral statements of what should be obvious. In particular, new clause 32 states that there is no equivalence between terrorist action and legal actions. It is extraordinary that it needs to be said that “a relevant person” in an inquest or proceedings

“must have regard to…the fact that force may lawfully be used to prevent unlawful violence”.

And what a thing to need to say that lawful action is not equivalent to terrorism! Why would that have to be stated in law, unless the Bill might be thought to suggest the opposite—that the law as it stands, and the Bill, could imply that equivalence?

At the heart of why the Bill remains inadequate is the essential imbalance in the legal procedures that the legacy of Northern Ireland applies. I pay tribute to a group of veterans I met recently—some special forces and some others—led by Dr Robert Parr, an academic at Oxford who was a Royal Marine and in special forces. He has written a very powerful paper that makes the simple point that the legal system—this is not addressed by the Bill; in fact, the Bill consolidates it—

“privileges the claims of former paramilitaries over those of the men and women who served the Crown”.

Of course, that is not intentional—the intention is to provide equity and parity—but the problem is structural.

The fact is that only a 10th of the deaths that happened during the troubles were caused by the security services, but it is men and women in uniform who must bear almost the whole institutional burden under the law as it stands, and that will not change under this Bill. The IRA and other paramilitary organisations got letters of comfort, early release and pardons. They had their weapons decommissioned without any forensic testing being done. Meanwhile, the British Army kept its records—indeed, it operated under the chain of command. It had accountability built into the work that it did; in fact, it had all the elements that made its decisions as safe as possible, as a military operating under the laws of a democracy. It is those elements that are now used against the Army, and that is the structural imbalance we face. That was apparent right at the beginning, when the Good Friday agreement was being implemented.

A letter has been released recently from John Reid, the Northern Ireland Secretary in 2001. He was writing to Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and he made it clear that the proposed arrangement, in which an amnesty would be offered to terrorists but not to British veterans, was asymmetric and unjust, but that for reasons of political necessity, that is how it had to be. As Dr Parr has pointed out, the asymmetric exclusion of the security forces was therefore not the product of principled legal reasoning or an honest assessment of comparative culpability; it was the price of republican acquiescence in a political settlement. Just consider the insult that that represents to our soldiers.

I pay tribute to and honour the point that the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) made. Our soldiers beat the IRA to a standstill. They fought it to the negotiating table, and then they had to take the final indignity, which is that they, not the IRA, would face the threat of the law and of prosecution.