Northern Ireland Troubles Bill

Debate between Gavin Robinson and Alex Burghart

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

[Alex Burghart]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that reassurance.

All that being said, we should be clear-eyed about what the Irish legislation does and does not do, and why it is in no way equivalent to the legislation that this House is passing. The general scheme put forward by the Irish Government is a means by which the Irish state may co-operate with the legacy commission. It does not require it to do so, nor does it set up any body equivalent to the legacy commission in the Republic. In short, while it is a step in the right direction, it guarantees nothing and it does not create an equivalent action in the south.

Yesterday, we heard in powerful terms about the failure of the Republic to engage fully on Omagh. Sadly, in the rejection of the Democratic Unionist party’s amendment, we also heard something about this Government’s failure to engage on Omagh. This afternoon, my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) has raised the issue again. I draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that, in 2021, when Mr Justice Horner recommended an inquiry, he urged that an equivalent investigation take place in the Republic. He could see, having assessed all the evidence, that one was needed, yet here we are, five years on, and there is no equivalent investigation in the Republic at all; nor is there any sign that there will ever be one. It is a source of sadness for this Committee that the framework that was signed by the previous Administration did not have within it an undertaking from the Republic that there would be such an inquiry. That was a significant omission.

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for making this point. The Committee should be aware that the Omagh families are this very day in court in Dublin, trying to secure the very same rights to an inquiry from the Irish Government’s perspective as the UK Government have offered them in the United Kingdom. Will he reflect on how wrong the Secretary of State was yesterday evening to reference, in part, a subsequent sentence from the terms of reference, when he knows that any information provided by the Irish Government was provided only to answer the question of whether the UK authorities could have stopped the atrocity, not what they could have stopped themselves?

[Alex Burghart]

That is precisely why, in 2021, Mr Justice Horner urged that there be a parallel inquiry in the Republic. The fact that no such parallel inquiry has happened, and that there is no sign that any such parallel inquiry will happen, speaks volumes.

Sadly, this brings us to a major point of contention: the issue of inquests. Yesterday, the hon. and gallant Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) spoke powerfully about the problems that exist with inquests, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) will do likewise today. The essence of the problem is this: the inquisitorial process in Northern Ireland has suffered a massive loss of confidence. The reasons for that loss of confidence will be very well known to anyone who has followed the Coagh and Clonoe cases, and it is precisely why colleagues are so concerned about the Loughgall case, which is covered by amendment 51, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington.

In Great Britain, inquests exist to establish the facts, and at the first suspicion of unlawful killing, they are required to stop and pass evidence to the DPP—I nearly said “the DUP”. In Northern Ireland, however, inquests have far too often sought to assign blame. That is why the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) tabled amendment 20.

Yesterday, we heard moving accounts from the hon. Members for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) and for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) of children being killed, very possibly murdered—awful, heart-wrenching stories. To be clear, the most contested inquests do not deal with such cases. They deal with the shooting of terrorists by security forces.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Programme) (No.2)

Debate between Gavin Robinson and Alex Burghart

Monday 19th October 2026 Commons Chamber

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

I promise not to detain the House for more than a few minutes, but I think it is important to put on record the Opposition’s unhappiness with how Committee stage is being handled. Although we of course welcome a Committee of the whole House, which allows hon. Members from Northern Irish parties to contribute, the amount of time set aside is wholly inadequate for the task. This is one of the most complex and controversial pieces of legislation that the House will debate during this Parliament. It is a 98-clause Bill to which over 300 amendments—including, I think, 144 Government amendments—have been tabled, and the amendment paper is now longer than the legislation itself.

The consequence of the scheduling is that this House will have very little time to spend on detailed scrutiny, or indeed on detailed discussion of the amendments tabled. Most concerningly, the programme motion makes it clear that we will have only about an hour for Report, and that hour will almost certainly be entirely ridden over by overrun.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for making those points, and for highlighting the lack of opportunity for this House to properly and thoroughly scrutinise this legislation today or tomorrow. I lament the fact that this democratic Chamber will have much less of an opportunity to scrutinise the Bill than the House of Lords does. Once the shadow Secretary of State concludes his remarks, we do not need scores of Members to make the same point, because that would eat into our scrutiny time.

[Alex Burghart]

I entirely agree with the right hon. Member.

It looks as though we will get no Report stage at all. The idea that there is not time available to the House to debate this Bill properly is laughable. On Wednesday the House is confining itself to the Church Appointments (Repeal of Discriminatory Provision) Bill. On Thursday we have a general debate. This House will not get to vote on any of the Government’s 144 amendments directly, or on any of the Government’s 98 clauses individually.

The new Administration have done one good thing here, for which they should take credit: they have rolled the remedial order into this legislation. We strongly support that. It is something that those on the Conservative Benches have been calling for throughout the progress of the Bill, but we think that, as the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) said during the carry-over debate, it would have been far better for the Government to have adopted their own amendments and created a new Bill, and brought that to Second Reading. It would have presented a far more coherent picture of what the Government are now up to. The extremely messy way in which this legislation has evolved means that that would have presented the House with a clearer picture of what was going on, and there could have been greater time to consider the new Bill in its entirety.

As it is, and as the right hon. Member for Belfast East has pointed out, the main scrutiny will have to be done by the upper House. Although their lordships excel at such work, this practice is becoming far too common.