Oral Answers to Questions

Gerald Howarth Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Villiers]

I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. It would be unacceptable to set up institutions that facilitated attempts to rewrite history. That is why the Stormont House agreement has written very clearly into it that new bodies must be objective, fair and impartial in all the work they do.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend was not here in the House last week when I pressed my urgent question about the arrest of Soldier J, formerly of the Parachute Regiment. In answer, her excellent and gallant Friend, the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said that the Secretary of State and the Irish Government had decided, on legacy issues, that the best future is to move forward and not back. Does she agree that to prosecute, nearly 50 years later, former British soldiers now in their late 60s and 70s who have done their best to serve their country would be an injustice?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am of course very much aware of my hon. Friend’s long-standing concern about that case. He will appreciate that decisions on policing and prosecution are rightly matters for the police and prosecuting authorities entirely independent of Ministers, but I reassure him that I am absolutely confident that the Police Service of Northern Ireland will approach that sensitive case with all the principles of objectivity, fairness, impartiality and respect for human rights that it displays in all its work.