Business of the House

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. To move on at 12.30 pm, I am afraid that we need one-sentence questions from now on.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Forty-one years ago, 10 Protestants were murdered by the Provisional IRA at Kingsmill. A man was subsequently charged because his palm print was found on one of the vehicles involved in the atrocity, but the Public Prosecution Service told the families this morning that that was insufficient evidence to prosecute the alleged IRA man. At the same time, soldiers are being dragged through the courts in Northern Ireland. When will we get equity of prosecutions in Northern Ireland?

[Mr Lidington]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has made it clear that he is working to try to address the way in which soldiers have been unfairly singled out. The Public Prosecution Service is rightly independent of political direction, so I cannot comment on the particular case, but anyone who knows anything about Northern Ireland will know that the scars of the Kingsmill massacre remain to this day.